At the annual joint meeting of the International Society of Protistology (ISOP) recently held in Seattle, U.S., Sina Adl, President of ISOP, announced the winner of this year's Hutner Award. Prof. Gao Shan, a member from the Protozoology team at the Institute of Marine Biodiversity and Evolution of OUC, was honored the 2024 Hutner Award for her outstanding contributions to the field of ciliate epigenetics. This marks another important award from international academic organizations won by Chinese protozoologists after Prof. Song Weibo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, received the Cravat Award (2007) and Foissner Award (1992) and Prof. Lin Xiaofeng from the same research team received the Corliss Award (2007).

The Hutner Award was established by the ISOP in honor of Symour H. Hutner, a renowned protistologist, to reward outstanding protozoologists who have made outstanding contributions. Since its inception in 1976, the Prize has been awarded to a scientist every one to two years. So far, only 40 scientists have received the award. Prof. Gao Shan is the first Chinese scholar to receive this award, which is another high recognition of her academic achievements from the academia after she received the ISOP Holz-Conner Award in 2013.